


road trip!

by fourshoesfrank



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse), Deadpool - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, angel is autistic ok, i wrote this because im gay, morena is brazilian so vanessa knows portuguese, the last thing i want to do is hurt someone bc i was lazy, the warning is a bit of a stretch but, vanessa breaks the fourth wall a few times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 07:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15625299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: Angel Dust has a change of heart and gets Vanessa away from Ajax.





	road trip!

Someone was carrying Vanessa fireman style. It was raining, she could hear the thunder, but it sounded far away. A closer sound was that of a woman cursing. Maybe the woman was the one who was carrying her. 

Vanessa didn't open her eyes until she could hear cars going by. She saw that she was propped up in an alley, directly across from a door with the logo of a pizza place on it. She wasn’t wearing her work clothes anymore. Instead, whoever had taken her had dressed her in a pair of tattered jeans and a shirt that felt a size too big. 

The person who had been carrying her was probably the woman standing to Vanessa’s left, in the entrance to the alley. She looked familiar. Maybe she was the one who’d been with the bald guy when he knocked Vanessa out. Why was that woman the one taking Vanessa...somewhere? 

Vanessa knew almost next to nothing about where she was and who was with her. This wasn’t a good situation. It could be remedied, though. 

“Where’s your boss?”

The other woman’s head jerked up at Vanessa’s query. She chewed the match in her mouth for a little while, considering her answer, before replying with, “He doesn’t know we left.” 

Wasn’t that so helpful. 

“So you’re in trouble.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but the match-chewing woman considered her response for so long that it might as well have been. 

“Yep. I’m Angel.”

“Vanessa.” Angel seemed...if not friendly, at least not hostile. That was good. And strange. “You’re disobeying your boss for me. Why?”

“Tell you later. We need to get out of Vancouver and get you back to New York. Follow me.”

Vanessa pushed herself up and grabbed the wall for support when a wave of dizziness washed over her, because clichés. “Wait,” she managed to get out, “we’re in Canada?”

“Last time I checked. Come on, the dizziness will go away in a minute. We have to move.” Angel started walking out of the alley without checking to see if Vanessa was behind her. 

Vanessa peeked out to check for Mr. I Kidnap Sex Workers At Two AM, but there was no sign of him. Just a sidewalk full of the early morning crowd and a street clogged with their cars. She saw Angel standing across the street, impatiently tapping her foot and glancing around, probably checking for signs of pursuit. Vanessa trotted across during a red light to join her. 

“We need to move quickly. What kind of car do you drive?"

"What...What does that have to do with anything?"

“You'll be familiar with how it handles and you'll be able to drive faster. What kind of car do you drive?"

"My grandma has a Honda Civic, that's the only wheel I've been behind."

Angel sighed. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Ajax has safehouse garages. We'll find what we need there." She started walking downtown, like that explained everything. Vanessa trotted after Angel, bursting with questions that the other woman needed to answer.

"What if we're caught?"

"I tell Ajax that I was recapturing you. If he gets his hands on you again, you'll be in for a very rough night."

-

 

"You could've picked a better color than bright yellow, I feel like Dopinder in his damn taxi," Vanessa muttered, slowly pulling out of the warehouse and joining the flow of traffic headed south. Angel sat in the passenger seat with another match in her mouth and directions to the border pulled up on her phone. They were going to cross at Niagara Falls, where it would be easy to lose any pursuit in the crowd. 

Angel put her feet up on the dash and leaned her seat back. She evidently felt safe enough, and Vanessa relaxed a little. The other woman had managed to snatch Vanessa’s phone from wherever that scumbag Ajax had kept it, and it was resting in one of the cup holders with directions pulled up on the Maps app. The trip would take two days and twelve minutes to complete. 

Road trips always had music. Every cross-country coming of age movie had a killer soundtrack. Vanessa turned on the radio and found the only station that had a good signal and played songs that were younger than she was. She drove through five songs before Angel woke up and told her to turn the radio off. 

“What? Why? I can change the station if you want, it seems like old music is a Canada thing and not just a Wade thing. 70’s rock is the only other station that I can get. 2013 pop or 70’s rock, take your pick.” 

“No, turn off the radio because we shouldn’t be able to get any stations at all out here, not in this weather,” Angel ordered. It was cloudy, looked like some rain was on the way, but that didn’t explain the urgent look in Angel’s eyes. 

“Then how are we getting a signal?”

“This car’s been modified. I had the guys put in a stronger antenna first. I’ve been watching the other cars for ten minutes. None of them have the radio turned on. Play it safe and turn off the radio. I’ll shoot the console if I have to.”

“Okay, I’m turning it off, geez.” They rode in silence for a while.

“Can I at least play music on my phone?”

Angel grunted. It sounded like a grunt of agreement, so Vanessa used Siri to play some Abba songs. Angel seemed to enjoy her choice. Vanessa’s first real win of this road trip, yay!

“So why me?”

“Hm?” Angel looked up from her phone. It looked like she’d been pretty focused on whatever she’d been doing. 

“Why rescue me, why not someone who you’re trying to mutate?” The question was the first of many that had been brewing in Vanessa’s head ever since she woke up in the alley. 

“How do you know what the workshop is for?” Angel seemed genuinely surprised. 

“I have good ears; heard some men who were guarding me talking about a ‘tricky one to mutate’. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you’ve been doing.”

Angel nodded thoughtfully. “You’re smart. That’s good, it’ll help us get you home.”

“But why are you helping me get home in the first place?” Vanessa exclaimed. She could only take so much of this circular dialogue that only serves to raise the word count.

“The people that come to us to have their mutation unlocked...They come to us. They consent to what we do to them, because the end result benefits them.” Angel sighed. “You never consented to any of this. We kidnapped you. I’m sorry for that. You don’t have to accept my apology, just my help.”

“Yeah.” Vanessa took her eyes off the road for a second to see if Angel really was apologizing. It sure looked like it. Maybe it didn’t. The woman didn’t seem to have much in the way of facial expressions. Vanessa wasn't sure how she felt about this. She seriously doubted that torture was something a rational person would consent to, was something Wade would consent to. He had been pretty fucked up when he left in the middle of the night, though. There was no telling what he might've done if he'd never been told about Angel and her boss's 'business.'

"Did you ever torture my boyfriend?"

"Yep, I actually did most of the heavy lifting. He used to say your name over and over when I blowtorched his feet." A moment of silence that neither of them knew how to fill, and then, "Sorry. That was rude. He said he'd been through worse, though."

Didn't that make her feel so much better. "You blowtorched his feet? You..." Vanessa shook her head slowly, trying to focus on driving and on the song that was playing. One of Wade's favorites. Angel took her feet off the dash. Her way of saying sorry again, maybe?

"I did a lot of things to him. I don't think you want the details."

Vanessa sighed. Angel was right, again. She didn't want to know anything about torture beyond the fact that it was painful and almost always unnecessary. Wade sometimes tortured people at work, she knew that. So it didn't have to be that big of a deal that Angel had tortured Wade. And she was helping Vanessa now, so...

"I'm sure part of this is just the author wanting more complicated friendships between well-written female characters, but I'm not as mad as I should be. Now, are we going to stop at hotels or are we just gonna stay in this car for two days straight?"

"We'll need to get gas eventually, and you need to eat. Three more hours on the road, then we'll get food and go from there. Sound good?"

Vanessa nodded. "Yeah."

"Good. I was gonna shoot you if you said no." 

"You mutants have the most fucked up senses of humor."

-

Angel honestly didn't know why she was still helping this girl. She could take care of herself when there were no mutants holding her hostage, so why did Angel want to protect her so badly? Did she even want to protect Vanessa, or was it her stupid ride or die mentality keeping her in this car. Her money was on the latter.

"Angel," Vanessa yawned, "I'm gonna pull over. I can't keep my eyes open."

"Okay."

"What, you're not gonna shoot me and tell me to keep driving?" Her voice was so thick with sarcasm that even Angel could tell she wasn't being serious. Angel shook her head. 

"Get gas. I'll drive until I'm tired. We'll spend a few hours in a hotel room and get some real rest then."

Vanessa smiled at her. "Sounds like a plan," she agreed. "Will the gas pumps in Canada take an American credit card?"

"I don't know, Ajax does all the shopping. Well, he did all the shopping. Don't think he's gonna be too happy to see me after this stunt I'm pulling."

"Hey." Vanessa lifted a hand from the wheel and placed it on Angel's shoulder with a gentle squeeze. Angel leaned into the touch, which was a welcome change from the punches that usually landed there. Vanessa smiled at her. “I’m sure Wade will take care of him.”

“Makes it sound like he’s a pet I’m leaving behind,” Angel scoffed. She pointed ahead to the exit sign. "Might wanna get over."

"Okay." The other woman switched lanes and took them off the highway and into the smallish town of Saqsqup. There were a few hotels in sight, but Angel vetoed them, saying they were too obvious. Vanessa drove aimlessly for a few minutes before deciding their lodgings would have to wait.

"I'm starving. Let's check out that Italian diner we passed on the way in."

"Fine. I'll ask about hotels there. Waitresses are chatty. If ours isn't, I'll shoot her."

"That was a joke, right?"

Angel shrugged. "I'm rusty."

-

"Hi, I'm Ameera and I'll be your server today. What'll it be?"

Vanessa ordered first, because she wasn't going to be asking questions and threatening to shoot people. "I'll have some spaghetti and a side of fries, please."

"And to drink?"

"Do you have Coke?"

"Is Pepsi okay?"

Vanessa bit back a joke about memes because the author thought it didn't fit the scene and nodded. Ameera jotted down her order and turned to Angel. 

She spoke before the waitress could get a word out. "My girlfriend and I are looking for a hotel. Small, out of the way. Is there anything like that around here?"

If Vanessa had been drinking her Pepsi, she would've choked on it, spit it out, or both. She didn't have the drink, though, so her body settled for coughing once before she calmed herself with the realization that this was just a cover story. It would throw off Ajax for sure, since he probably thought they were both straight.

Ameera tapped her pen against her notepad, thinking. She shrugged, and Angel tensed with the expectation of bad news. She'd left her gun in the car, so Vanessa wasn't too worried. Ameera's eyes lit up at the last second, and Angel relaxed.

"Up Main Street by that Indian place is a little hotel, two floors. It's called the Bluebell. Now, miss, may I take your order?"

"Gnocci, garlic sticks, and water. Thanks."

Ameera left. Vanessa leaned forward. "Girlfriend?" she asked, smiling slightly. "Did you suddenly forget we're only here because I need to get back to my boyfriend?"

Angel just stared at her, like Rhonda Rousey in that Twizzlers commercial. It was pissing Vanessa off. She really didn't sign up for any of this.

"Are you mad because I made you leave your gun in the car? You are just like Wade, you know that?"

"Am I." It wasn't a question, but Vanessa intended to respond anyway. Before she got the chance, Ameera arrived with their drinks.

"Water for you," she said, placing a glass in front of Angel, "and Pepsi for you. Your food will be done in a minute."

"Thank you," Vanessa said, while Angel remained stonily silent. She did nod at Ameera, though. Who says chivalry isn't dead?

That joke made absolutely no sense at all. Maybe Vanessa should get a better author, or this author should get a beta. 

The Pepsi was almost flat, but it was cold and it was a liquid, so Vanessa gulped it down like it was the first thing she’d had to drink that day. It was the first thing she’d had to drink that day. Ajax didn’t keep water bottles in his cars, as the two of them had quickly learned. 

Angel sipped her water and didn’t say anything else. 

The silence quickly got boring. "So, where you from?" Vanessa asked. “I mean, you know where I live, since you kidnapped me from New York. Where did you grow up?”

“Chicago.”

"I've never been. Is it windy?" Vanessa joked. Angel fixed her with a stony stare and did not reply. Seven hours ago, that would have either irked Vanessa or scared her, but now the only thing that the patent-pending Villainous Glare was accomplishing was time wasting. 

Ameera interrupted again with their food, and meu deus it smelled like the manly musk of a benevolent Italian kitchen god the food smelled so good that Vanessa would honest to god have sex with the chef free of charge—

"Smells good," Angel echoed Vanessa's thoughts, picking up her fork and digging in. Vanessa thanked Ameera as well and scarfed down a few of her fries. The waitress topped off their drinks and left to wait on another table.

"Eat up fast. We might have been followed."

"So if I eat slow, you'll shoot me?"

"Eventually."

-

The hotel room was never going to end up on Vanessa's Top Ten Reasons to Visit Canada, but it had two beds, which Angel seemed immensely grateful for. Vanessa pretended to pout when she heard Angel's sigh of relief on entering the room.

"I'm actually very good at spooning, just so you know," she told her. Angel nodded absently and flopped down on the bed closest to the door.

"We need to shower. Some of Ajax's thugs can track by smell."

"Angel, we're, what, a hundred and fifty miles away from them? How on Earth would they smell anything from that far?"

"Mutation intensifying drugs." The other woman stood up, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. "My scent is more familiar, so I'll go first."

"Great, so if we get caught you can blame it on me." Vanessa was only half joking.

Angel didn't seem to be joking at all when she replied, "Exactly."

Two showers later, the two of them lay in their separate beds, planning their next move. Alright, each one was pretending to herself that their aimless discussion counted as planning their next move. As far as Vanessa was concerned, they had all night to figure it out. Angel just didn't want to consider the possibility of failure.

"What's your real name?"

She heard a sharp intake of breath from Angel's side of the room. Vanessa tried to backtrack. "If it's a deadname you don't have to tell me, obviously, but it's pretty obvious you named yourself after Angel Dust, the drug." 

"Christina." The name sounded rough in her mouth, disused. Dusty, the name sounded dusty. Vanessa couldn't make herself think of the woman laying down several feet from her as Christina, she just couldn't do it. She was in this mediocre hotel with Angel, not the bearer of that dusty, rusty, musty name. 

-

Angel was driving this time. Vanessa napped in the passenger seat while her phone occasionally gave directions that Angel ignored, for the most part. Ajax had sent her all over Canada doing his dirty work, so she knew the highways well. Well enough to drive ten miles over the speed limit most of the time, apparently. 

"In 0.4 miles, take Exit 31."

Angel flapped a hand at the phone with an annoyed expression. "Shut that thing up. I took a sprout with ice abilities to the falls a few years back. I know the way."

"You could've told me that earlier," Vanessa grumbled, but she turned her phone on and canceled the directions. She checked her texts, but Wade hadn't tried to contact her. Her boss had, and one of her coworkers, but no ex boyfriend. Boyfriend? Ex boyfriend? Fuck it, she was going to sort that mess of feelings out with Wade if and when she saw him again. 

She was going to see him soon, maybe even within the week. Angel would deliver her to New York City that night, and she'd take the next few days off to find out if Weasel knew anything. Vanessa suspected that the bespectacled bastard had known Wade was alive all along, for some reason. 

Things were looking pretty good for Vanessa Carlysle. Not so for Angel...Dust. She'd never even told Vanessa her last name.

"After you drop me off," Vanessa began, "where will you go?"

The other woman shrugged. "I'll figure it out."

"You sure? My apartment was built to house two people, you know." Why did she just invite this lady to stay with her. Vanessa inwardly scoffed. And she thought Wade had poor impulse control. 

Angel switched her gaze from the traffic to her passenger and frowned. She was thinking hard, Vanessa could tell by the crinkles in her forehead. She'd had those same crinkles right after she'd revealed her birth name, and right before she'd told Vanessa why she was worth saving.

"Let's make a deal. I stay with you. We look for your boyfriend. When he turns up, I'll leave."

"Deal," Vanessa answered. Angel's forehead smoothed out and she looked back at the road, this time with the hints of a smile on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> leave me some feedback you forgetful hobgoblins


End file.
